Solar Plants Could Be More Efficient By Copying Sunflowers

New research suggests that by mimicking sunflowers, solar plants could become much more efficient.

At MIT, researchers are developing a way to make a more efficient solar plant — by mimicking a sunflower.

The team is working alongside researchers at RWTH Aachen University in Germany to develop a concentrated solar plant that's capable of producing more solar power while using less land. The design arranges the sun-gathering mirrors of the solar plant in a way that resembles the spirals found on a sunflower.

Researchers say this new design could reduce the size of a solar plant by 20 percent while still increasing its energy output. Since concentrated solar plants are necessarily very large, this reduction is very welcome.